Thank you all for reading this blog.

I wish a 2008 with good surprises for you and close ones.

Bem hajam,

Rui

At last we have the option of taking the ITIL v3 Foundation exam through Prometric (only in English).

You can either book it online (Go to http://www.2test.com/, choose EXIN as exam provider and then EX0-101 ITIL Foundation v.3) or contact a local Authorized Prometric Training Center. It costs 140€ (when booked online).

This exam is also available on Pearson VUE.

I couldn’t confirm it but it looks like the ITIL v3 Bridging Foundation is available too.

You may find the free Overview of ITIL useful for reviewing (take care - it’s not enough for exam preparation…).

EXIN’s information on this here.

Utility and Warranty come handy when characterizing and checking the value of a IT Service as it progresses throughout its lifecycle.

Utility - Functionality offered by a Product or a Service to meet a particular need. Utility is often summarized as “what it does”.

Warranty - A promise or guarantee that a Product or a Service will meet its agreed requirements (”how it is done”).

These two concepts help in the definition of the Service Level Package (the closest concept to this with ITIL v2 would be the obscure Service Specification Sheets), a new ITIL v3 concept used in the Service Design phase in order to specify both Utility and Warranty for a particular Service Package being designed.

This in turn will feed the most important deliverable from Service Design: the Service Design Package, the IT Service’s blueprint during the next two phases (Service Transition and Service Operation), as the new or changed Service is developed, tested, transitioned into live environment, and then maintained day-by-day until it becomes obsolete.

The Customer will most certainly focus more on the Warranty aspects of a IT service after starting using it.

For example, if I go to a hairdresser to get a haircut (the Utility being the haircut service; it could also include shaving or hair dying) I’ll certainly will be expecting that:

1. It won’t take too long to get my hair cut
2. My head suffers no harm
3. I have a comfortable chair
4. and so on…

All these build up my perception of “how the service is being delivered” - the Warranty.

We may say that (depending on your local habits), the hair washing may serve an Utility purpose (extra functionality besides the haircut) that can have a positive impact in the Warranty of the haircut service (if properly done…).

Likewise, when using a IT Service, the Customer is quite influenced by how well the Service Provider performs regarding, for instance, the agreed Availability, Capacity, Security and Continuity service levels (the Warranty).

And that level of Warranty may just be the distinctive advantage one Service Provider has against the competition (which quite probably is able to provide the very same functionalities… the Utility of a IT Service).

Service Strategy introduces an interesting pair of complementar concepts: Resources and Capabilities.

Straight from the book we have:

Resource: A generic term that includes IT Infrastructure, people, money or anything else that might help to deliver an IT Service. Resources are considered to be Assets of an Organization.

Capability: The ability of an organization, person, Process, Application, Configuration Item or IT Service to carry out an Activity. Capabilities are intangible Assets of an Organization.

People are at the same time a Resource (in the sense that people are frequently instrumental in delivering an IT Service) and a Capability (people carry out Activities…).

The productive capacity of a service provider dependes on how Capabilities use (develop, deploy and coordinate) Resources. This added value can be seen as having a positive effect on… the resources and capabilities of the receiving Customer (thus, in turn, increasing his productive capacity to achieve business goals).

Maybe in a bit too simplistic way we can say that capabilites take time to build up whereas resources are relatively easy to acquire (a bit like when we buy goods - if we the money and the resource is available, then we can have it fast).

So, capabilities are generally harder to copy by competition (thus should constitute a positive difference) and help service providers gain advantage on the market space they’re going after.

People are then, from these definitions, the ultimate Asset on every organization. Why? Because they’re flexible, work well with uncertainty and can use all other types of resources and capabilities (more on that on the Appendix B from the Service Strategy ITIL v3 core book).

In a way not that far from what Blue Ocean Strategy advocates, an organization can be successful by creating a set of distinctive, hard-to-replicate capabilities that deliver a customer experience hard to replicate. The challenge is to get the right balance between resources and capabilities, by fulfiling a Customer need with a cost-effective set of connected capabilities and resources to satisfy those needs. An example from Blue Ocean: Cirque du Soleil does it by offering a new kind of show aimed at adults by having the capabilities to provide shows with a story, sophistication, blend of arts and at the same time being more effective on resources by letting go the expensive animals and attractions a traditional Circus offers).

Sources:

      Section 3.2.1 from Service Strategy for a good introduction, Appendix B, Section B.1 also from Service Strategy.

      Blue Ocean Strategy by  W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

Robin pointed us out the excellent ITIL v3 summary An Introductory Overview of ITIL v3.

It’s more like the previous pocket guide for ITIL v2 and even if it’s not a crash course base material for ITIL v3 Foundation I do recommend it as a summary.

Don’t miss it as a good handy reference. I wish I could put my hands on a paper version of this…

Interesting how two voices converged to the very same topic of automating Service Management almost simultaneously (automation not as an end by itself but as a away of improving productivity thus focusing on variable issues).

Automation should be a natural consequence of the coesive and much more integrated ITIL we new have with the version 3 five core books.

Rodrigo Flores tackles Request Fulfilment automation opportunities in this post and Hank Marquis looks into a wider scope (relevant for ITIL v2 too) with this article.

 [Rodrigo posted the rest of his notes regarding Request Fulfilment automation here.]

Colin Rudd has been around with ITIL since kindergarten (it takes time to hear it from his mouth… Go for the bit at 1h:43m:45s…). And it shows. He’s prolific on ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 being responsible for ITIL books, training and consulting.

I’ve had pleasure of knowing him in person and he is a communicator (he can’t seem capable of saying no everytime we invite him to Portugal).

If you read Sharon Taylor’s Official intro book you’ll recognize his hand in the first diagram for every Service Lifecycle phase chapter. That’s no coincidence.

 For a taste of his writing and visuals look at the free ITIL v2 overview book.

Here’s a take-and-share version of the previously mentioned ITIL v3 Processes throughout the Service Lifecycle. For a Visio version just email me (currently English and Portuguese versions only).

 [I've just removed the last spurious "Operations Management" entry. That's a function. Also, I have a Portuguese (European) version. Volunteers for other languages? I can make them available from here. I've seen a version from Hong Kong (last page)...]

I’ve been reading “The Official Introduction to the ITIL Service Lifecycle Book” from Sharon Taylor. It’s a good read and quite an effective introduction to ITIL v3 (and an obviously cheaper one than the five ITIL v3 core books for 30£ the hardcopy or a bit more for electronic versions).

The tenth chapter gives a glimpse (more of a teaser actually) to the Service Management Model to be made available online  on the ITIL Live web portal http://www.itil-live-portal.com/ as part of the dynamic complementary guidance that’s meant to keep ITIL up to date.

There’s a graphical view for the 27 processesentries spread along the Service Lifecycle (Figure 10.2, page 150). IT presents a broad perspective of where those processes intervene throughout the Lifecycle.

It’s a temptation to find where the process fit now under the Service Lifecycle umbrella. And a crucial one, since there’s lot of effort around the world by organizations around ITIL and the typical way to go is based on processes.

From that diagram we have the following 2726 ITIL v3 processes (by Service lifecycle stage where they’re rooted):

Service Strategy

• Demand Management

• Strategy Generation

• Service Portfolio Management

• IT Financial Management

Service Design

• Service Level Management

• Service Catalog Management

• Capacity Management

• Availability Management

• Service Continuity Management

• Information Security Management

• Supplier Management

Service Transition

• Transition Planning and Support

• Change Management

• Release and Deployment Management

• Service Asset and Configuration Management

• Service Validation and Testing

• Evaluation

• Knowledge Management

Service Operation

• Event Management

• Incident Management

• Request Fulfillment

• Problem Management

• Access Management

• Operation Management

Continual Service Improvement

• Service Measurement

• Service Reporting

• Service Improvement (The Seven-step improvement Process)

The previous, too quantitative and superficial approach I took to count 27 ITIL v3 processes, listed  the Business Relationship Management (which although referred to is not treated explicitly as a process in the ITIL v3 core books) so that one is out of the above list…

I am confused with the inclusion of Operation Management (I’ve seen it as “Common Service Operation activities” in an older version of that diagram). Any thoughts on this?

[Update: After reading the Service Operation book regarding Operation Management/"Common Service Operation activities" I've got a clearer picture of it. Please see comment for this post.]

[And another update: I've removed the Operation Management entry. It's a function. It's 26 processes... no more counting. Check this post and this one]

There’s also a wonderful big picture diagram at the beginning of each chapter dedicated to a phase, depicting the five Service Lifecycle phases flow. It is gradually completed until we get to Continual Service Improvement and I find it quite good for positioning the reader (and of course it had to be done by the great visual explainer Colin Rudd - got to feature him as a guru one day soon).

The book can be bought at (besides the big online book stores and probably with a discount from itSMF local chapters):

http://www.best-management-practice.com/Online-Bookshop/IT-Service-Management-ITIL/ITIL-Version-3/The-Official-Introduction-to-the-ITIL-Service-Lifecycle/

After a comment from IT Skeptic for the previous Service Catalogue - ITIL v3 post, I’ve drawn this diagram hoping it will give a clearer picture on this topic (it is heavily based upon Figure 3.7 from the Service Design core book) .

A bit more, again from the Service Design book (4.1 Service Catalogue Management section):

• Business Service Catalogue - Contains details of all IT Services delivered to the Customer (it is the customer view)
• Technical Service Catalogue - Expands the Business Service Catalogue with relationships to the supporting services, shared services, components and CIs necessary to support the provision of the service to the business (so it’s not Customer viewable).

The Business Service Catalogue contains the relationships with business units and business processes that are supported by each IT Service. It can sustain a more proactive Service Level Management.

The Technical Service Catalogue helps focusing internally on establishing supporting agreements and contracts (SLAs, OLAs and contracts with external providers) since it identifies the underlying technology and supporting groups for each IT service. 

The Business and Technical Service Catalogues briefly described above reflect the dual perspectives on services mentioned on IT Skeptic’s comment.

Like before with ITIL v2, these are guidelines that need to be adapted to each organisation. The big advantage being they’re described in a broad context this time closer to the business.

[Rodrigo Flores wrote a post that may help further on clearing up these Service Catalogue/Service Portfolio concepts.]